AOL 9 is a real revamping of the old AOL, with a strong emphasis on customization, particularly with the new QuickView window. The e-mail is improved, with more features. AOL's IM client is more feature-rich. If you're using it, visit Keyword: AOL 9.0 Optimized Features for a guided tour.

Plenty of people are still using AOL 8. One new feature is called the "AOL Companion." A small floating window, it keeps track of how many new email messages and IM (Instant Messages) you've received. Even when you log off AOL, the Companion stays put to give you easy access to your messages. 8.0 users can customize their Welcome screen with their preferences. Six different configurations are available, depending on whether seeing news headlines, feature stories, polls or other content are preferable. You can also choose a "theme" to apply to AOL, changing the color scheme and even adding photographs and animations to the background. IM gets a custom facelift too; you can customize it by choosing wallpaper, choosing from hundreds of new IM sound effects, and using new smileys. New backgrounds, banners and sound effects are included to dress up your email messages. New security features let you hide email messages that aren't from people who are already in your address book. Users can also retrieve deleted messages up to 24 hours later. For Web browsing, AOL 8.0 uses Internet Explorer. Searches are now run through Google first, and AOL's search results appear afterwards. There are a good number of problems, as well. E-mail is still lacking some basic features it should have had long ago. There are some new spam filtering tools in this version, but nothing to get excited about; virus scanning tools are promised for later this year. Few new features have been added to music, pictures and video services on AOL. In fact, most of the features and content seem centered around marketing opportunities for AOL's partners (no surprise there). AOL 8.0 requires Windows 98 or later, so if you're still running Windows 95, you're out of luck. You'll also need at least 64 MB of RAM memory. Though AOL promises to block pop-up advertising, the new program does little of the sort: while it does block third-party pop-ups on its own content pages, it does nothing to block its own pop-ups, nor does it it block pop-ups in its own browser. Netscape 7.0 also comes with the new AOL, and although it's based on Mozilla, it has the pop-up blocker capability of Mozilla stripped out. Hmph.

After years of mulling over their browser choice, AOL is supposedly phasing out its usage of Microsoft Internet Explorer in favor of Netscape's Gecko/Mozilla engine as of Version 8 (though IE still seems to be the choice in the early versions of AOL 8). Gecko is the open source Web page rendering engine that forms the basis of the Mozilla Web browser as well as Netscape 6. (Find out more about Gecko and Mozilla at www.mozilla.org/releases/ and my own Netscape/Mozilla page.) Gecko is slated to replace the Microsoft engine in AOL 8.0, the next major release of AOL's client software. Why the change? AOL claims that its use of MSIE fouled up its streaming audio and video, as well as being poorly compliant with HTTP 1.1 protocols. For the average AOL user, this won't be too traumatic of a shift (we hope), but for the Web designer, it has a great deal of impact. Gecko is very finicky about compliancy with W3C standards, and since over 30 million people use AOL to access the Web, most designers need to make their sites compliant ASAP.

Why didn't they change over earlier? Well, in 1998, AOL agreed to use MSIE as its default browser in return for a default icon on the Windows desktop. The 1998 contract expired on January 1, 2001 and has not been renewed, with talks to extend it going nowhere. CompuServe has already incorporated Mozilla into itself. With Windows XP eliminating default desktop icons to 'reduce clutter' and Microsoft preparing to integrate MSN and .NET with Windows and MSN Messenger in a deliberate action against AOL, their deal with Microsoft has gone sour. AOL and Microsoft, never the happiest of bedfellows, may be ready to go at each other in a battle of the heavyweights. Pop some popcorn and settle in, this should be good. (Thanks to Vince at 5 Star Support for many of the details in this section.)

One good thing AOL is doing is providing its users with Amber Alerts (officially America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response, and was named after murdered nine-year-old Amber Hagerman of Texas). Anyone who signs up for the free service through America Online's pre-existing AOL Alerts can get the alerts through PCs, pagers, and cell phones. Sign-up is free through AOL's site at content.alerts.aol.com/. Registered AOL or AIM users can plug in their screen name for alerts broadcast through the instant messaging service, while other users must sign up for a free screen name to get e-mail or text-based wireless messaging.

If you're interested, the only real rival to America Online as a content provider is The Microsoft Network, or MSN. Its latest version, 8, provides a lot of what AOL does for a cheaper price, but since most of its proprietary material is also available at www.msn.com/, it's hard to see it as a viable candidate to challenge AOL. The interface is much improved from previous versions, and the opening screen provides lots of locally originated material such as weather and news tickers. MSN's IM client, MSN Messenger, works as well as AOL's IM. Probably its biggest drawback is that its e-mail services are provided by Hotmail, Microsoft's dubious and well-hacked mail system, though the new version provides an Outlook clone with strong antispam controls. Version 8 also boasts new parental controls and a "My MSN" start page.

CompuServe. It's a sign of how far CompuServe has fallen that it gets mentioned as an afterthought in the AOL page. When the Internet was just a-bornin', CompuServe was the only real content provider available for an international audience. Text-based and pricey, CompuServe was still the only game in town, and a terrific source of computer information and files of all kinds. Things sure have changed. CompuServe never really caught on with the non-techie audience, who quickly discovered that AOL, Prodigy, and other content providers were much easier to deal with. CompuServe wound up being bought out by AOL, and thousands of techheads ran screaming to their local ISPs or elsewhere when CompuServe 2000 reared its ugly head. Currently CompuServe is a pale echo of itself, trying to combine the technical resources of its salad days with a graphics-heavy, AOL-like, user-friendly interface. CompuServe Version 7 is now available on CD or for download, but it's a far cry from its technophile heyday, even touting itself as the "value brand alternative" to AOL's "premium service." Ugh. CompuServe Classic, the remnants of the original CompuServe, still has its adherents, most of whom refuse to upgrade to the more AOL-like 2000 Version 7.0. Find out more at www.compuserve.com/, which fronts itself with an access page that looks alarmingly like an AOL/Netscape hybrid (though it's not a bad portal page).

AOL 7 is established, and the word is "screwy," to quote a Langa List reader. Although AOL 7 is supposedly configured for broadband use, some DSL users are having problems retrieving mail through their DSL connections, and worse, it makes it difficult, if not impossible, to go back to the older 6.0 version. 7.0 offers more broadband support, streaming music, AOL Radio, an upgraded "You've Got Pictures" section, a new version of AOL Instant Messenger, and enhancements to AOL Mail, Buddy List, and instant messaging. Like 6.0, the new version likes to fiddle with a PC's networking setup. On Langa's test machine, it installed a new Dial Up Adapter for VPN support, a Microsoft VPN Adapter and a WAN Miniport (ATW); it bound NDISWAN to the VPN adapter and the WAN adapter; and more. Think very intrusive and very unnecessary changes to your networking and dial-up configurations. More on AOL 7 as I process the information. Note: Win XP users will have to upgrade to AOL 7.

AOL 7 has junked the older "Media Tower" element for broadband users, replacing it with a simpler yet powerful interface. The broadband enhancements are for real, and chat/IM users will notice an upgrade in service as well. As for the non-broadband AOL users...well, I can't see a reason to upgrade.

AOL 6.0 really isn't much of an upgrade over AOL 5, but some of its features are enhanced e-mail (sortable by date, subject, or address, and now able to display mailings in HTML format), yet another redesigned toolbar (organized by subject and with a new Channel Guide), an enhanced media player, a voice-messaging facility called "AOL Speaks," and the ability to create chat groups (Groups@AOL) that lets you share messages, photos, etc. with the AOLers you want in your inner circle. More about that later. 6.0 provides members with access to their Calendar and Address Book through AOL Anywhere, and it offers better support for DSL, cable, and satellite access. Overall, not a necessary upgrade, but a nice one. You need a Pentium-class PC with 16MB of RAM and at least 113MB of free hard disk space (130 for Win 95 users), and if you choose to take the MSIE 5.5 upgrade along with 6.0, it'll cost you another 100MB of hard drive real estate. It's optimized for an 800x600 screen resolution. AOL members upgrading from older versions will be able to import their personal settings and info into the new version. (Note: 6.0 was designed specifically to work with Windows 95/98 and more or less with Millennium. It is not designed to work with NT 4x, 2000, or even 3.x. A version designed to be more compatible with Millennium is in the works, and may be available by the time you read this. AOL is recommending that users keep the older version of AOL on their computer, if they have the space, in case the new version misbehaves.)

Now here's the downside of AOL 6. According to veteran PC tester Fred Langa, "AOL 6 makes an almost unbelievable number of unnecessary and even dangerous changes to your system's networking setup--- some of them so bizarre even AOL's own support technicians are at a loss as to explain what's going on. (I know: I called them.). At best, AOL 6's changes are likely to make your system less stable; at worst, AOL 6 may render your system wide-open to hackers, crackers, and other online miscreants." Not what you want to hear. You can get the full review of AOL 6 at content.techweb.com/winmag/columns/explorer/2000/25.htm, but here's the gist. AOL assumes that most of its users are not particularly computer-literate and want AOL to do most of the behind-the-scenes decision-making without user input. It also assumes that it is going to be the absolute only Internet connection on your computer, and proceeds accordingly. If these are indeed true, then the changes made to your machine, though extensive, will not be that troubling to you. However, AOL does not intend to let another ISP connection of any kind get in its way. It alters the DUN protocols to actively block other ISP connections from functioning, and adds gobs of bloated and unnecessary files to your computer in the process. Worse, it makes changes in programs and files that ostensibly have nothing to do with AOL's function. Why? Well, Langa wasn't able to get a straight answer from AOL's tech support, but he did get a letter from AOL management outlining the assumptions delineated above. Upshot: you either run AOL 6 or you run something else (Earthlink, MSN, a local ISP, whatever), but you don't run both if AOL can help it. Also, AOL's software makes lots of unauthorized changes to your system, some adding to general system instability and some just downright inexplicable. If this doesn't bother you, fine. If it does, then be warned. Should you decide to go ahead and install AOL 6, check out ZDNet's guide to the program at www.zdnet.com/zdhelp/stories/main/0,5594,2657903,00.html.

AOL 5.0 allows two more screen names (and e-mail addresses) for a total of 7, more compatibility with external browsers, a bundled copy of MSIE 5, digital picture access, a full-featured personal calendar, access to new and supposedly improved AOL areas, messaging to some pager networks, and, best of all, increased stability. You'll want to keep some of your personal info and custom settings before installing AOL 5. Here's what you want to keep: account info, screen name(s), saved password(s), favorite links, saved e-mail, address book, buddies list, etc. Make backup copies of these folders (most likely found in C:\AOL4, but your directory name may be different): C:\AOL4\IDB and C:\AOL4\ORGANIZE, and these files (if present) from the C:\AOL4 main directory: AOL.INI, AOLPP.INI, AOLPP2.INI, GOTO.INI and VIEWERS.INI. Temporarily rename them and store them somewhere safe on your drive. Now uninstall AOL 4 by going through the Add/Remove Control Panel applet. Restore the renamed AOL files to their original names. Install AOL 5 (from the CD or the download, whichever you did). Your Address Book, saved Favorites, etc., are in the AOL\ORGANIZE folder -- copy the old folder and paste it over the new one. (Note: when I did this, AOL 5 came up still missing my Address Book and Favorites. I went in to the new Organize folder and found two versions of the files with the screen names, i.e. Currituck7, etc. [Sometimes they show up with periods, like Currituc.k7.] I deleted the new versions of each file and presto! the old Address Book and Faves reappeared.) Now you're upgraded. (There is a known problem with PCs using AOL 5 on LANs and WANs, where AOL 5 updates files and asks the user to restart the computer, even though there is no need. AOL is working on a fix. Some Win 98 users are having problems booting their systems after installing 5.0 -- again, AOL is working on a fix. There's also rumors that the new AOL deliberately disables Internet utilities and browsers that aren't AOL products. AOL won't confirm this one.)

AOL 5 is no bed of roses, either. In fact, when it came out sometime in 1998, so many users were dismayed at the problems that ensued that an entire cottage industry of technical support for the damned thing sprang into being. In fact, some ISPs and system vendors ended up refusing technical support to customers who had AOL 5 on their machines. It can, and did (and does) cause major system stability problems on some machines, including some totally inexplicable interference with some power management functions. It also insists on using a degraded and bug-ridden version of MSIE. Again, you can get the full report on AOL 5's flaws from Fred Langa at content.techweb.com/winmag/columns/explorer/2000/02.htm.

Millennium users may have problems connecting with AOL due to a configuration conflict that causes the system to try several times to reconnect, and sometimes boots users offline without warning. Microsoft has a Knowledge Base article and a patch available; the best way to find it is to go to support.microsoft.com/ and search for Article Q272016. I downloaded and installed the patch, and it doesn't seem to do a lot of good. Hmmmm. An article detailing some of the problems between AOL and Millennium can be seen at support.microsoft.com/support/windows/
topics/winme/AOL/winmeaol.asp.

One user warns that AOL 5 doesn't like for you to upgrade or patch the bundled version of MSIE 5 that comes with it. Reportedly, the attempt to upgrade doesn't play nice with the customized version of MSIE that AOL provides.

What is "My AOL" and do I care? Well, maybe you do and maybe you don't. My AOL lets you configure a "personal home page" organized around five main areas.

• Daily: Explores My News, My Calendar, My Portfolios, Favorite Places, and My Places
• Interests: Looks at News Profiles, Interest Profiles, the Reminder Service, Portfolio Direct, and Newsletters
• Controls: Sets your Preferences and alters Screen Names, Passwords, Mail Controls, and Parental Controls
• People: Lets you try out features such as My Pictures, your Member Profile, My Home Page, Buddy Lists, and the Address Book
• Services: Access the Billing Center, Quick Checkout, Banking Center, Brokerage Center, and Phone Services

AOL Anywhere is a long-overdue Web presence for AOL users (and anyone else, though their access is limited). Go to www.aol.com and after signing in, you can check your e-mail, send messages, read news articles, and do a good number of the things you formerly could do only by accessing AOL proper. (Many of AOL's proprietary content offerings are still only available through AOL itself.) You can also use AOL Anywhere to connect through PDA or Internet phone.

New AOL 5.0 users should definitely check out ZDNet's "AOL 5.0 Superguide" at www.zdnet.com/zdhelp/stories/main/0,5594,2405581,00.html. It covers everything from downloading and installation of the big beastie to getting the most mileage out of it.

One feature of AOL 5 that I particularly like is the ability to switch between screen names without signing off and back on, as required with previous versions. All you do is open the Sign Off menu, choose Switch Screen Name, select the name you want to use, click the Switch button, glance at how much time you've spent online and your billing status, click OK to complete the switch, and if needed, type the appropriate password.

You can access AOL on someone else's account simply by signing on as a guest. By doing so, you use that person's software with your screen name and password. Any online charges for the session go to your account. Some limitations exist, though: You can't use Auto AOL, create Favorite Place entries, switch screen names, or access the Download Manager. In the Sign On screen, click the down-arrow next to Select Screen Name. Click the Guest screen name. The Password box disappears but that's normal behavior for a Password box. Click the Sign On button to connect with America Online. The process moves along smoothly until the Checking Your Password stage. At that point, the Guest Sign-On box appears. Type your screen name and password into the appropriate boxes and press Enter or click OK.

You can restore a deleted screen name under the new versions of AOL. It's not difficult; you will sign on to AOL with the master screen name, and use Keyword: Screen Names to open the Create or Delete Screen Names window. Then click the Restore a Screen Name button, highlight the screen name you want to recover, and click Recover. The system reinstates your screen name and updates your screen name list.

If you're an AOL user who isn't ready for 5.0, you definitely want to download AOL 4.0 at least, if you haven't already. Minor tweaks abound, and several features were overhauled. E-mail, always a weak spot for AOL, got a major revision, with speedier file download/uploads, multiple file attachments, ability to insert graphics in text, automatic spellchecking, slightly beefier anti-spam protocols, and a revamped Address Book. 4.0 navigates more smoothly than before, in part due to a tighter integration with Internet Explorer. (Those of you who prefer Netscape can use Navigator with AOL, but you have to launch the browser separately from the desktop, just as with the present version. You can download AOL's version of Navigator from Keyword: Netscape after installing 4.0, but be warned that this version will replace any other version of Navigator you may already have, even if your version is newer. Back up BOOKMARK.HTM before doing the replacement, and remove your old version of Navigator through the Add/Remove applet just to keep things tidy.) The toolbars are customizable, more intuitive and more informative, modem detection is better, security measures are somewhat tighter, the registration process is simpler, and connections are more reliable (this is also partly due to AOL's ongoing addition of 20,000+ modems a month). Users can switch between account names without signing off and signing back on. They can even access their e-mail without signing onto AOL by using the new NetMail feature (a plug-in available from www.aol.com. Users of AOL's 10MB of Web space have a new community, Hometown AOL, to join (only 4MB of Web space here, though), and a new Personal Page Publisher to help them create their own pages. Bad news? The worst seems to be the interminable download time. Initial response by AOL users seems very positive. All this doesn't mean that AOL is necessarily more attractive to veteran Net surfers than before, but it does mean that those who choose to stay with it may be happier. To get the new version, go to Keyword: AOL 4.0. The download comes with a customized, non-Active Desktop version of MSIE 4.01. For more info on using the new version, check out PC World's article at www.pcworld.com/heres_how/article/0,1400,7100+1+0,00.html. Recently AOL and Netscape merged, with Sun Microsystems serving as bridesmaid. This gives AOL/Netscape two of the four most popular portals (see below) on the Internet, AOL itself and Netcenter (formerly shut down but now reopened as part of AOL's buyout), making "AOLScape" an even bigger presence on the Net. At present, AOL still provides MSIE as its default browser (including an option to download IE 5, and the inclusion of MSIE 5.5 with AOL 6), but that may change. Now if they'd just do something about the infuriating pornographic spam....

You guys are aware that you don't have to use the AOL browser, right? Just log onto AOL, minimize it, and open a separate copy of whatever browser you like best. OK, OK, you knew, but maybe someone else didn't.

In the dim and distant past, Prodigy got some attention for raising a fuss about AOL 5's refusal to play nice with its software. Prodigy claims that users who have both Prodigy and AOL 5 on their machines experience all kinds of problems, such as AOL launching its dialer when the user tries to launch Prodigy, preventing Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer from viewing Web pages over a Prodigy connection, and refusing to let users sign up for other ISPs once AOL 5 is installed. These claims haven't yet been validated, but here's how to make everyone play nice in the same sandbox. First, you need to see whether AOL is your "default" ISP or not. If it is, when you launch your second ISP connection, you'll get a dialog box informing you you're connected to the Internet (duh) and asking if you want to launch AOL. Say No. If you say Yes, AOL will attempt to launch itself over the established connection and almost certainly cause a crash. To keep this from happening, right-click on the AOL icon in your System Tray, click on the item labeled "Auto Start Options," and click the radio button that says "Don't use any Auto start options." Then click OK. If you prefer using a different e-mail or browser program than AOL, then you definitely don't want it as your default option. Otherwise, clicking on a "mailto" link in your other ISP may let AOL terminate your connection, launch itself, and open an e-mail "Write To" form. Clicking on a URL saved in your other ISP may allow AOL to attempt to launch itself over the other ISP, causing your system to gag. Here's how to change the default from AOL to something else: Go through Start/Programs/Control Panel, and click Internet Options. Click on the pull-down "E-mail" menu, and choose the preferred e-mail client over AOL's mailer. Do the same in "Newsgroups," if applicable. Next, click the "Reset Web Browser" button, and choose Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator (or whatever browser you like) over the AOL browser. Click Yes to confirm, and OK to lock your resets down. And if worse comes to worse, get rid of AOL 5 altogether (use the Add/Remove applet in Control Panel) and if you just have to have AOL, go for AOL 4 instead. That'll show that mean old program.

Interestingly enough, the folks at BugNet www.bugnet.com/alerts/bugalert_21100.html claim that a single Windows design flaw is the cause of Prodigy users' woes, not AOL's evil plotting. Prodigy users should turn off the AOL AutoStart option (right-click the AOL icon in the System Tray, choose Auto Start Options, and choose the disable option. Click OK to lock this choice in.

Addendum to the above: Eight million AOL users have filed suit against AOL, alleging that AOL 5 disables other ISPs and competitors' browsers. Hmmm. No word that I know of on how the lawsuit turned out.

A lot of useful help and information can be had from the AOL community of users. There are, indeed, plenty of mouth breathing idiots on AOL, but most of them never visit this area. Go to Keyword: Help Community for message boards, forums, and more.

As stated above, AOL insists on making itself the default connection to the Internet on your computer, no matter how many Net connections exist on your machine. Trying to connect to the Net while already online with AOL can easily crash Windows, and worse, damage your settings. You can force AOL not to be the default connection by following these steps:

1. On your PC, open Start, Settings, Control Panel, Internet Options.
2. Click the Programs tab.
3. For each of the programs, click the drop-down menu and choose something other than AOL.
4. At the bottom, check the box that your browser should check for default status.

A further bit on AOL's insistence on making itself your default "all-everything" provider: the Association selection in Preferences, if enabled, tells your computer to use the America Online software any time another program wants to send e-mail, visit a Web site, or perform any other Internet-related task. This setting associates the America Online software with all Internet tasks, which is how the programmers came up with its odd-sounding name. Unless you have a really, insanely good reason to turn this option on, leave it alone. Using this innocent-sounding menu option leads to extensive behind-the-scene changes in Windows that aren't easily undone. It doesn't matter if you use only America Online for Internet access -- do not use the Association preference setting.

As discussed above, AOL uses an abbreviated version of MSIE 5 as its browser. To tweak your AOL browser's performance, go through My AOL, choose Preferences, and click on the WWW button to access the AOL Internet Properties dialog box. (MSIE users will note that only 4 of the usual 6 tabs are available.) The "General" tab allows you to control the look of displayed Web pages, clear the cache and History settings, delete cookies, select/deselect AutoComplete, define the amount of space you want to use in your Temporary Internet folder, and choose a home page. The "Security" tab lets you assign any Web site to one of four security zones: Internet, local intranet, trusted, and restricted, each with its own default security level. All Web sites are considered Internet sites unless you pick another security zone for a particular one. Trusted sites are those you trust for clean downloads, while restricted sites are those from which you don't want to download anything. You can even define custom rules for each zone by choosing Custom Level after selecting the zone you want to customize. Under the "Content" tab, you'll see options for selecting/deselecting Content Advisor, Certificates, and Personal Information. By activating the Content Advisor, you can control the kinds of Internet content accessible by your computer. Language, sex, violence, and nudity are all controllable by four different settings within each parameter. You can also specify particular sites you always, or never, want accessible, regardless of their content ratings. Certificates is used for those who want to employ digital ID confirmation, or those who want to use encrypted e-mail systems. The Personal Information settings let you enable or disable AutoComplete for Web addresses, forms, and passwords. The last tab, Web Graphics, contains a single check box allowing you to decide whether or not you want the browser to employ compressed graphics for faster loading and display. For most of us, compressed graphics work well enough; if you want the absolute best in graphical display, uncheck this box. Note: AOL's contract with Microsoft expired on Jan. 1, 2001, so speculation is rife that AOL will begin bundling its wholly owned Netscape browser instead of MSIE, but nothing like that has happened yet. Perhaps that's because as long as AOL uses MSIE, it gets automatically packaged into every Microsoft desktop released on the consumer market.

Making a change to your AOL location is quick and easy. The most common changes involve updating the access numbers or resetting the dialing options. To change a location: In the Sign On window, click Setup. The AOL Setup window appears. Click Expert Setup. The Connection Setup dialog box appears. You should see a list of locations. If you see modem information instead, click the Locations tab. Scroll through the location list until you find the place that needs an update. Click one of the Connection Profiles beneath it; then click Edit. The Edit Number (Connection) window for that profile rushes to the screen. Make whatever changes are necessary. Click OK to close the window and store the changes. Click close to close the Connection Setup window.

AOL is easily configured for cable access. If you've set your machine up to accept cable, then configure AOL to connect with the cable by starting AOL and choosing Setup from the Welcome screen. Click "AOL Setup" and then click "Next." In the "Add Location" box, type a name for your connection; Cable should do nicely. Click "Next." In the "Add Connections" box, click on the "Add a TCP" box and click Next. This will add a TCP connection. Now use the Welcome box to connect through the Cable connection.

Want DSL access? AOL offers DSL access, called AOL Plus, in selected areas of the United States. Go to Keyword:DSL for more info. Caveats: only AOL 5 and 6 users are able to get this service, and if you want to find out if your state/area is included, you have to go through at least the early part of the sign-on procedure, which means you need to sign on with your Master Screen Name. Cost is a cool $20/month.

The flip side of AOL Plus is that if you're running AOL 5 or 6 over an office LAN, DSL, cable, or other high-speed connection, AOL automatically installs Plus onto your system. In some cases, you may not want this, as it sometimes conflicts with other software and is useless with analog (dial-up) connections. You can purge it from your system by logging into AOL, typing Remove AOL Plus in the address field, pressing Enter, and following the on-screen instructions.

A lot of Internet users get their start on America Online and "graduate" to a different carrier, whether it be a national or a local provider. For a while, I found AOL's 10MB+ of free Web server space attractive, but the connection delays, the truckloads of offensive spam, the slow Web page download times, and the harassment from idiots sending you IM's asking you about your sexual preferences can become too much to bear. If you're an AOL user thinking about jumping ship, here's some tips. First, do you want to keep any of AOL's content? Maybe there's a chat room that you want to keep accessing, or there's some content area that has your name on it. If so, consider AOL's "Bring Your Own Access" plan. For $9.95 a month, you can retain access to AOL's content without relying on it for Internet access. (Go to Keyword: BYOA for more info.) If you like AOL's Instant Messaging and Buddy List features, you can download software that will let you use these features anywhere on the Net -- see www.aol.com/aim/home.html. (Also be aware that other providers, such as Juno, have instant messaging clients that let you connect with your AOL buddies.) Once you've decided whether or not to retain any of AOL's content, now you have to decide on a new ISP. The key here is experimentation - most ISPs let you have 30 free days to decide what you think of their service. Use those 30 days without breaking away from AOL just yet. (Many national ISPs, most notably Earthlink/Mindspring, are actively courting AOL users - see their Web sites for details.) Once you've settled on a new ISP, you'll need to transfer your e-mail address book to your new e-mail server. You can do it donkey-style by retyping each one into your new address book, or you can send a letter to everyone on your list informing them of your change and asking them to reply to you at the new address once it is active (the easiest way, believe it or not). Most e-mail programs let you add anyone who sends you mail to your address book. Next, disconnect your AOL service by calling 800-827-6364 and telling the service rep to kill your account. Resist all offers of free time to stay with AOL. Lastly, purge the AOL software from your PC (don't do this if you're taking them up on their BYOA option). Start by using the Add/Remove Programs utility in Control Panel, but don't stop there. Go back to Control Panel and double-click the Network icon. Make sure "AOL Adapter" isn't listed; if it is, select it and click Remove. Then select TCP/IP.AOL Adapter and click Remove again. Now your PC is AOL-free.

In 1998, AOL signed an agreement with 44 state attorneys general that forced them to expedite cancellation requests. To date, that agreement has been less than fully honored. Many, many AOL members who wish to cancel their account have been given the runaround by AOL phone staffers. Worse, many AOLers who leave the service find that their accounts are still being billed. If this is happening to you, don't sit still for it. Raise absolute hell with AOL, and complain to the anti-AOL watchdog site AOLWatch at www.aolwatch.org/. Send your e-mail complaints to destiny@aolwatch.org and Richard.Blumenthal@po.state.ct.us.

Plenty of Web sites, including this one, give you lots of Web addresses (URLs) but don't link to them. That means you have to cut&paste them into the address box of your browser and then press Enter to surf to them. If you don't mind using AOL's inboard browser (currently a "lite" version of MSIE), here's a slightly faster way. First, highlight the address by right-clicking on the first letter of the URL and dragging the mouse over the address. Then hold down the Ctrl key and keep it pressed down while pressing, one by one, the C, K, and V keys. This (C)opies the address to your Clipboard, opens the (K)eyword dialog box, and pastes (V) the address therein. Now just press Enter and you're on your way.

There are a lot of ways to tweak AOL for better performance. Veteran AOL users know about a mysterious file called MAIN.IDX, which seems to bloat every time they sign on. That's because it does -- it contains the AOL artwork stored on your computer, and it doesn't take long to get out of hand. Control it by going online, clicking the My AOL icon, and selecting Preferences/Graphics. Set "Maximum disk space to use for online art" to 1. Then close and restart AOL. You should get a message that indicates AOL is purging stored artwork. Now that you're back online, go back into Preferences/Graphics and reset the same item to 6. This will prevent your artwork cache from growing past 6MB. It wouldn't hurt to do this once or twice a month. On another topic, 32-bit AOL 4.0 users (that's us, Win9x people) notice that AOL causes a lot of disk thrashing. You can download a free patch that will cure this on some versions of AOL 4 at either www.digicron.com/aolspeed/ or www.aolspeed.dhs.org/. Speed up AOL more by cleaning out the AOL browser's cache (go through My AOL/Preferences/WWW, under the General tab click the Delete Files button, and under the History tab, click the Clear History button). Also, some users tend to stuff their Personal Filing Cabinet with unneeded messages. Go through these and delete 'em. Want to save your AOL Address Book? Open Mail Center, click Address Book, and look for the Save/Replace button (if you don't have one, you need a newer version of AOL). Click the Save/Replace button, choose "Save Address Book for your Current Screen Name," specify where to save it, and click OK. Unless you choose a different name, it'll be called Address Book.PFC. You can restore your Address Book from a previously saved version by selecting the "Replace the Address Book" radio button and then clicking OK. The "Select File to Restore" dialog box appears. Select the directory containing the Address Book you want to restore and then click the Address Book's filename. Click Open to restore the Address Book entries.

Note: As part of AOL's update to Version 6, it's provided users with the ability to paste pictures into the Address Book along with the usual e-mail address and notes. You can add a picture to an existing address in your book by selecting that address and then clicking Edit. Picture is a tab in the Edit Person window. To add a picture, first click the Picture tab, then click the Select Picture button. Find the picture on your hard drive by using the Open dialog box that appears. The picture must be in BMP, JPG, GIF, or AOL's own ART format. The first folder that opens is AOL's own Download folder, so you can easily add a photo that someone sent you via e-mail. AOL's Address Book helps you find the right picture to add to an address entry. by giving you the Preview option. Click the check box for Preview when you're using the Open dialog box and you see that image reproduced on the right of the dialog box. If you like what you see and click Open, you then see a dialog box asking if you want to resize the picture to fit within the Address Book window. If you choose not to resize but then don't see the picture, you need to perform the operation again and use the Resize command.

Watch the opening screens very closely while AOL is booting up. It takes you through several steps, starting with initializing the modem and dialing the access number. Step 3 is the one you want to see, and usually the one that flashes by the fastest. It says "Connecting at XX bps," which is the speed at which AOL estimates your current connection to work. If you're running a 28.8 modem, you'd think you'd connect at 28800 bps, right? Not even. Sometimes connections are considerably slower. By watching for the connection speed to flash up during the bootup process, you can guesstimate how much of a delay you can expect to deal with while online.

I mentioned earlier that you could configure your Toolbar to suit your needs. Here's how: Click My AOL. Now choose Preferences. Click Toolbar. Choose to view both Icons and Text or just Icons. Choose to see the Toolbar on the Top or Toolbar on the Bottom. Click OK. That's not a lot of configuration, but it's better than nothing....

AOL gives you an Optional Toolbar that includes such options as Quotes, Perks, and Weather. To remove any or all of these buttons, right-click on the optional toolbar buttons. This only works, though, if your screen is set to 800 x 600 dpi resolution or greater.

One less-than-adequately documented AOL feature is the keyboard shortcut. Under "Favorites" and "My Shortcuts" can be found a list of 10 shortcut options, Ctrl+1 through Ctrl+0, that can be assigned to any Web site or AOL area you like. Add, delete, or change them as you prefer.

A feature that's related to the shortcut keys is Hotkeys. You can create a Hotkey to any AOL or Web site that you like by choosing Favorites, My HotKeys. Select "Edit My Hotkeys" from the drop-down menu. The Edit Shortcut Keys window appears. Replace the existing Menu Entries (AOL-chosen commercial sites) with favorites of your own, and enter the area's keyword in the text box appearing next to the area's name. Click Save Changes. Now you can jump straight to wherever you like with a simple combination of keystrokes.

A neat way to enhance your searches on America Online is to add an exclamation mark to your search words. For example, if you're looking for information on "cats," type it as "cats!" (without the quotation marks). AOL then searches for synonyms of "cats" along with the search term itself, giving you more hits to choose from. Another search tip: AOL gives you a list of site results that look haphazardly organized, but there is an organization underlying the random appearance -- first AOL lists what it considers to be more relevant AOL sites, then less relevant; then, if you click "Rest of the Web," you'll get sites organized by relevance from more to less. The "Show Me More Like This" button has AOL attempt to find pages like the one you're indicating. And don't forget that you can switch between "Summaries" of sites and simply "Titles" by clicking on the "Summary" option under "Rest of the Web." And don't forget the "About Search" option -- it tells you just what you can do with AOL's Search facility.

AOL tracks your site visits in its History Trail, which becomes a list beneath the Location bar. (That's the line that says "Type Keyword or Web Address here and click Go.") You can get at these sites by clicking the down arrow at the right end of the bar. The good news is that this feature makes it easier for you to return to those places. The bad news is that other people can use your History Trail to see where you've been. If you want to make it harder for others to track your surfing, here's how: Click My AOL and choose Preferences. Now, click Toolbar. Near the bottom of the Toolbar Preferences dialog box, check the box to clear the history after you sign off or switch names. Click OK. Now the history is there for you only during the current session. If even that unnerves you, you can click the Clear History Now button in that same dialog box to immediately cover your tracks.

Go to Keyword: Neighborhood Watch to get information about AOL's online security, a list of scams, and a reminder that AOL never asks for passwords or credit card info.

AOL 4.0 is notorious for "freezing up" on the user. There are at least 3 ways of dealing with a locked-up AOL. The first is the classic 3-finger salute: Ctrl+Alt+Del. This brings up Windows's Task Manager. Highlight "America Online" (sometimes it says "Not responding" alongside) and click End Task. The probem with this is that you often cause your entire system to freeze, requiring a restart. Another solution is to replace Windows's Task Manager with the freeware Tasks Manager/Killer from ArcaneWooD at www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Network/4414/My.html. Download it, install TASKMAN.EXE over the existing copy of TASKMAN.EXE in your Windows folder (back up the old file first), and next time AOL locks on you, instead of Ctrl+Alt+Del, run the new Taskman utility instead, browse to AOL's listing, and double-click it. Zap. (Note: This program, like all ArcaneWooD programs, are written in Visual Basic 5 and require the Visual Basic 5.0 SP2 files to run correctly. You can download these files from the same site.) The third, and probably best, solution to AOL's freezeouts, is to replace AOL 4 with AOL 5. See above on the best way to install AOL 5 over a previous version.

AOL 4 doesn't like the third-wheel Microsoft Intellimouse. That third button scrambles its little brain. You can go through the Mouse applet in Control Panel to disable its software and make AOL 4 happier.

Another way to make AOL freeze is to overload your machine's video adapter. If you keep getting interruptions, try this: right-click on the desktop, choose Properties, click Settings, click "256 Colors," click on "Apply," and then click on the "Advanced" button and choose the "Performance" tab. Look for the "Hardware Accelerator" slide, and drag the slider (click and hold) down at least one notch. Click OK and see if that helps.

Another, even more useful way to make AOL behave is to upgrade the Network Adapter AOL uses to connect your PC to the system. Try forcing AOL to install a new adapter: in Control Panel, double-click on the Network icon. Click on the "Configuration" tab, and choose "AOL Adapter." Click "Remove" and then OK. Restart Windows and then start up AOL. AOL will, in the process of starting up, download and install a new, hopefully fresher, adapter.

As it turns out, there are many ways to skin yonder cat. AOL 4 freezeups can be caused by several things, and can be cured (or at least treated) by several more. First, AOL 4 has a problem getting along with MSIE 5, and it really dislikes the IntelliMouse, as stated above. Additionally, like the bully it is, AOL 4 also picks fights sometimes with just about any utility you may have running. Here are some ways to take some of the steam out of AOL 4's shorts. First, upgrade your version of AOL 4. Fire up AOL (no need to connect), and click under "Help/About America Online." When the AOL window pops up, hit Ctrl+R. If you're still plugging away on AOL 3, make sure you're running version 131.75 or newer. If you're running AOL 4, make sure you're running version 134.224 or newer. If not, upgrade (go to keyword: Upgrade). Some Win 95 users find that AOL 4 just doesn't work well on their machine; if that's you, you might considering sliding back to AOL 3. Another thing you can do is to frequently empty your browser cache. If you use AOL's version of MSIE, go through "My AOL/Preferences" and click "WWW." You're whisked to the usual MSIE screens; go through the "General" tab, click on "Delete Files," and then "Clear History." For cookie removal, go through "Settings," "View Files," then hit Ctrl+A to select all of the cookies and hit Delete. Click OK on all the warning screens -- yes, they're cookies, and no, you don't want to keep them. Third, think about cranking down your video. AOL's software might be giving your video card indigestion. Right-click on an empty spot on your desktop, click "Properties," and under "Settings," change the Colors entry to 256 and click "Apply." Under the "Performance" tab, which may or may not be behind the "Advanced" button, move the "Hardware acceleration" slider down one notch and click OK. (This tip is documented in a separate section above, also.) Next, think about disabling your antivirus software while AOL is running. If that solves the problem, consider using a different antivirus program. Next, turn off the graphics compression. It doesn't do that much good anyway and it can snarl up MSIE 5, among other programs. Go through "My AOL," click "Preferences/WWW," and under the "Web Graphics" tab, uncheck the box beside "Use compressed graphics." Click OK. Now we start getting our hands dirty. You might think about removing the AOL adapter...your version might not be doing the job. Go into Control Panel, double-click the Network icon, and click the "Configuration" tab. Highlight "AOL Adapter" and click "Remove." Click OK and restart Windows. When you're through rebooting, restart AOL and the software will reinstall an updated version of the adapter. Next, if you're an IntelliMouse user, try disabling its software (it should run as a generic mouse). Sometimes the IntelliMouse protocols squabble with AOL 4. You might solve your problem by something as simple as calling a different access number -- go through "My AOL/Access Numbers." Lastly, clean up your machine with ScanDisk, Defrag, and so on; make sure you're running the latest version of whatever browser you're using with AOL (check Microsoft's or Netscape's Web sites for more info), and visit the Web site of your PC vendor and download and install any updated drivers.

One user says he has luck unfreezing AOL by going through the following procedure: Click and hold on the AOL icon in the top left corner. Hold the mouse button down and drag the cursor to the "Help" item on the menu bar. Click Help, and when it opens, choose "About America Online." This will unlock AOL and banish the hourglass cursor. If this works, or doesn't work, for you, let me know.

If you're constantly resizing AOL's display windows by dragging the edges or the corners, you can (often) make the resizing stick by opening the Window menu and choosing "Remember Window Size Only." If you want it in a particular place on your screen, choose "Remember Window Size and Position." Next time you open this window, it should open the way you had it.

In AOL, open windows often get buried in the flurry of online activity, especially considering AOL's propensity to open one window after another in its own browser and content areas. Here's how to use the Window menu to handle the clutter. To find a lost window, click the Window item in the menu bar. A menu drops down, and the bottom of the menu lists the first nine open windows. If the window you want is on the list, click its entry. Immediately, that window pops to the top of the pile. If the window you want isn't on the list, choose Window, More Windows to see a complete window list. Scroll through the list and double-click the window that you need. For a quick look at where you've been, even if you closed the window, click the down arrow on the browser bar. A list drops down from the bar, offering up the names of the last 20 or more windows you opened while online. Click one of them, and that window opens on-screen.

AOL's e-mail client isn't the best in the world by a long shot, but it's functional enough and easy for even the droolingest of users to figure out. One thing it won't do, though, is send secure messages -- not without help, anyway. BPS Software, makers of lots of AOL-oriented software, is offering a $20 utility called PowerMail that, along with numerous "dress-ups" of your e-mail, allows you to encrypt your messages. The first time you send someone an encrypted message, the utility will send them a free decoding utility so they can read it. AOL users go to Keyword:BPS; others try www.bpssoft.com. Want to send and receive mail automatically? Go into Mail Center and choose Automatic AOL (formerly FlashSessions). Go through the screens, making your selections, and prepare to watch things move.

While we're on the topic of AOL-related software, you can find a plethora of wares at Keyword: Download Center. Most of them are free, but as with all share- and freeware, be wary of ringers, viruses, sleazeware, and so forth.

AOL's purchase of Netscape has given AOL members a side benefit: the preview version of Netscape 6 lets you read your AOL mail using the same program you use to read your POP3 (non-AOL) mail. Go to home.netscape.com/download/previewrelease.html to download and install the program. Launch your new browser, choose Tasks, Mail to open Netscape's mail client, Messenger, choose Edit, Mail/News Account Settings, and click on "New Account." Select the "Existing Account" and "America Online" radio buttons, click Next, and fill in your AOL identity identification. Click Finish. Now you can use Messenger to check AOL mail by right-clicking the AOL account in the Mail Folders list and choosing "Get Messages for Account."

You can create mail filters in AOL to sort out spam -- sort of. Actually, you have to establish a screen name that will only receive mail from domains you trust, i.e. toejumper.net or whatever, and the people you choose to add to your "accepted" list. Log in under the master screen name, choose Preferences, and go through Parental Controls, Set Parental Controls, E-Mail Control, and Customize. Click Next, choose the option that allows mail only from the sources you list, and add the names of those sources to the list. Now you have to create, or allocate, different screen names with different source lists -- one to receive mail from newsgroups, one for business and job-related matters, one for family, etc. When you do get spam on unfiltered accounts, use a short, unique portion of the subject or message text in the filter (i.e. "Make Millions" or "Hot Teens"), and have AOL block all messages containing that text string. Ignore the full subject header, and the e-mail addresses, because those change every time you turn around. Keep this up, and after a while you'll be spam-free...well, okay, you'll have less spam than you did before.

It's a good rule of thumb on e-mail attachments to download them without opening them, and scanning them for viruses before opening. It's doubly mandated on AOL, which as we all know is a playground for hackers, crackers, and virusmeisters.

You can't keep e-mail in your AOL inbox past 27 days; after that, it evaporates. Use Automatic AOL (formerly FlashSessions) to copy your mail to your hard drive. Log on, then click Mail and then Set Up Automatic AOL to open the appropriate window; then select whatever tasks you want Automatic AOL to perform. To activate Automatic AOL, click Mail and then "Run Automatic AOL Now." You can also automate these sessions through the Scheduler.

AOL only keeps "Old Mail" (mail you've already viewed) on file for 3 days as a rule. You can stretch this to 7 days by going through My AOL, Preferences, Mail. When you're in Mail, look to the bottom of the dialog box and increase the "Keep my old mail" setting to the maximum of 7 days. Close Preferences. You can also do this through Mail Center's Mail Preferences. Save it forever on your own hard drive by going through Mail Preferences and choosing the "Retain all mail I read in my Personal Filing Cabinet" option. Now all your old mail is saved to your PFC.

AOL e-mails to other AOLers can have receipts to show when they were read, if you choose. Just check the Request Return Receipt box near the bottom of the Write Mail window while you're writing the message. If you want to know the message status without the nag of a return receipt, look to the Mail Center, Sent Mail. You may select any message there and click Status to see what's up.

AOL Mail now has spell-check, which can be activated by pressing the little "ABC" button in your mail toolbar or by pressing Ctrl+= (the Control and Equal keys). Use it. Note: people have reported that the spellchecker seems to have trouble with the capital "I."

In replying to a message, you can quote the original message by highlighting (dragging the mouse cursor) the section you want quoted. Then just hit Reply or Forward; the highlighted portion will be included.

Check the status of mail you've sent to other AOLers by clicking the Mail menu, clicking Sent Mail/Check Mail You've Sent, clicking on any message in the list, and clicking Status. This will tell you if the recipient has read your message, and if so, when.

"MIME" (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) attachments to AOL e-mail often make AOL's e-mail client confused. Instead of opening them for you, they just sit there. What to do? First, avoid MIMEs wherever possible -- stick to text messages when you can, and avoid the MIME attachments. Don't attach multiple attachments to a message, or AOL may convert them into MIME format. To deal with a MIME attachment already in your system, use WinZip or another full-featured unzipping utility to translate a MIME attachment, or go to Keyword: MIME for more info and suggested utilities.

Send a URL as a favorite to someone else by going to the Web page in the AOL browser, pressing Ctrl+M to open an e-mail window, and dragging the Favorite heart (top right corner) into the body of the letter. The URL appears in the letter.

AOL is notorious for its users having difficulty with access numbers. The good thing is that AOL has so many of them, you usually have your choice of several. The bad thing is that many of them (all of them in some areas) are frequently overloaded by yea zillions of AOL users all logging in at once. You can try to use different access numbers if you find yourself having difficulty getting through on a particular number. Fire up AOL but don't sign on. Instead, on the Sign On screen, click the Access Numbers button, and type your area code (or state or country) into the box. You'll see a bunch of numbers come up. Choose one that's different from the one you're currently using, but make damn sure you choose a local number (only the phone company can tell you for sure). Click Add. Then click&drag this number to the top of your own access number list on the right. AOL will start using this number to try to connect you to their servers. If this number works better, great. If not, go through the process again until you get some satisfaction, or until you get sick of the whole thing.

If you've got any sense, you're connecting to AOL via a local phone number. But many people access their AOL accounts from the road, and there are plenty of places in the world where there aren't any AOL local access numbers. What to do then? You should use AOL's 800 number. In fact, you should set this up now, while you're still at a local number. Go to AOL Keyword: 800 number and follow the setup instructions to add an 800 number to your dial-up options. Don't think this is a free call -- you don't pay anything to a phone company for this call, but you pay AOL an extra $6/hour for using their 800 number. But, you do what you have to do, and if you need to connect to AOL while in Borneo, this is what you do.

AOL has its own simple graphics-editing program. This lets you flip, rotate, crop, brighten, dim, and otherwise mess with a graphics file. To access it: choose File, Open. Then, in the "Open a file" dialog box, change to the folder that holds your image. Next, click the image and you'll see it previewed on the right (make sure you've clicked the Preview Picture box). Now, click the tool buttons to make changes to the image. Click Save to put the fixed version on disk or click Insert in E-mail to send it directly out through the Net.

To type characters for other languages -- such as French, German, Spanish, and a smattering of other European languages and International Currency symbols -- go to the Foreign Characters page at aol://4344:1805.charas.15083549.560681418. This list will tell you, for example, how to hold down the Alt key while typing 157 to get the Japanese Yen symbol.

Hold the mouse over the AOL links and see if you get a URL or a "On AOL Only" tag. The AOL-only tag indicates AOL's proprietory content that is restricted to AOL users.

AOL users, go to Keyword: Marketing Preferences and block the annoying "pop-up" ads that greet you upon logging on. While you're there, block AOL from sending you junk e-mail and snail mail (although the effectiveness of this is quite limited), and disallow the option of providing your e-mail and mailing address to "select" commercial vendors. Note: AOL says that users need to "update" their preference choices every year, so if you're suddenly getting boatloads of new spam and haven't checked your preferences lately, do so. AOL might have reset them to "Flood me with $%#@." Don't forget to do it for every screen name.

Which brings us to the topic of AOL privacy. If you're on AOL, you're a prime target for crackers, spammers, and all kinds of Internet lowlife. There are a few things you can do to at least partially keep yourself hack- and spam-free.

• E-mail. Spammers love AOLers, and your AOL e-mail address doesn't take long to get on their lists. You have a limited amount of control over your e-mail; log on using your master screen name, click the Mail Center icon, and select Mail Controls. Go through each screen name, examining all the options (which don't cover the entire spectrum, believe me): block all e-mail, block all non-AOL e-mail, reject e-mail from specific domains or AOL members, or block all mail except from addresses you list.
• Downloads. AOL's Download Sentry does nothing but warn you that any attachment or download may contain a virus or Trojan Horse program. It does not scan the downloads. So, you're on your own with downloads here -- use good judgment, and if you don't know the source of an attachment, don't download it.
• Hyperlinks in E-Mail. One of the favorite scams of crackers is to send e-mail to their victims with hyperlinks embedded therein. The victim clicks on the link, and the link sends them to a Web page with malicious JavaScripts included. Be careful how quickly you follow a stranger's hyperlinks; you may want to reset your browser to reject all Java, JavaScripts, and ActiveX controls before surfing to strange sites.
• Instant Messages. Just like the controls available for e-mail, you have the same controls available for blocking selected IMs. Just go into your Buddy List (keyword: Buddy) to set these up. Be aware that the AOL IM client has proven itself very vulnerable to hacking. Also, be aware that you, or anyone else, can keep "logs" of AOL chat sessions (to log your Instant Messages, open a Session Log, and then click the Log Instant Message conversations check box in the Logging dialog box). Treat anything and everything you say as something that can and often is being saved to someone's hard drive.
• Chat Rooms. An enormous amount of the hacking, cracking, and spamming that infests AOL starts in the chat rooms. There are programs available to anyone that can cull screen names from People Connection chat room listings and automatically add them to spam lists. Other, similar programs send IMs to unsuspecting chatters purporting to be from AOL, asking for "password verification." If you're a chatter, your best bet is to set aside one screen name for chatting, and set up strict e-mail and IM controls for that name -- no e-mail, no IMs, would be my recommendation. If you meet someone in a chat room who you would like to talk to outside the restrictions, you can unblock their access if you like.
• AOL Shopping. AOL's CRIS database of members who shop on AOL has been compromised again and again, and AOL seems unable to keep the hackers out. If you shop on AOL with a credit card, your number is wide open for purloining and abuse. I'd suggest not only getting that card number off of AOL's database and yourself as well, but even that you consider canceling that account. That or just put your credit card number up on a billboard and have done with it.

If you're a fan of AOL chat, you can dress up your chat "persona" by adding color and styles to your comments. Just highlight your remarks and choose from the Bold, Italics, and Color selections.

Bigtime chat mavens who have AOL 6 can create their own groups, complete with event calendars, message boards, and the ability to easily share photos and other files. Here's how to create a chat group: go to Groups@AOL under My Places, or to groups.aol.com. Select a name, choose your time zone, and select one of three "themes" that determine the layout of your chat page: Family, Friends, or Activity. Pick a Style, based on what kinds of colors and doodads you want dressing up your page, and create a member profile of yourself. (As with most things AOL, this is all very step-by-step and easy to complete.) Now, you can invite those lucky souls you want as part of your group. AOL members can join simply by signing up; non-AOL folks can also join, but need AOL's Instant Messenger to participate. Remember, the creator of the Group runs the show: he/she can add or delete members as desired, or elevate deserving members to Owner status (where they, too, can wield the godly power that only the creator formerly had), but only the creator can delete the group. The Help utility that comes with the Groups facility is quite useful and detailed. Have fun, chat groups.

You can also send any Favorites to chat buddies by simply dragging the item from the Favorites list, or dragging the heart icon directly from the site, into a chat window. This sends the Favorite directly to your recipient.

Want to keep a record of your chat sessions? Go through My Files and click Log Manager. You can save the log you keep as a file, append it to an earlier file, print it, or what have you. Don't forget to close it when you're done recording -- although you can leave the chat and the Log Manager will keep right on recording as long as you're connected to AOL. Hmmm. The possibilities are endless.

AOL is working with Yodlee www.yodlee.com to create a central location for all your personal financial accounts and information. Users of AOL, CompuServe, and Netscape Netcenter will be able to see their bank accounts, e-mail, frequent-flier miles, and travel reservations in one place. Eventually this site could receive your bills, pay your bills, and track your investments. Is there a privacy concern? Of course, so find out what's what with this new service before leaping in.

AOL has deleted all Member Profiles of users 12 years old and younger, in line with the new Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. No longer will their names, ages, and interests be available.

AOL's Parental Controls come in four levels: Kids, Young Teen, Mature Teen, and General Access. The Kids Only level restricts access to the AOL Kids Only channel, filtered chat, and filtered Web sites. Young Teen blocks private and member-created chat rooms and instant messaging. Mature Teen gives most AOL features except Web sites and newsgroups blocked because of their sexual content. More info is available at Keyword: Parental Controls. Remember, the Master Screen Name must be set to General Access for the Parental Controls to work. The Parental Controls just got a lot better, due to AOL's incorporation of the Contextion analysis software; sites that get through the first time are usually blocked from being visited again (the software analyzes site content and judges whether or not its parameters are violated). Warning: AOL takes an all-or-none approach to IM's, so if the settings allow for your kids to use AOL's IM client, they're open to anything or anyone who might decide to initiate contact.

Most parents know how to block their kids from seeing certain sites through the AOL browser: in the Master account, go through My AOL, Parental Controls, and choose Kids Only, Young Teen, Mature Teen, or General Access for each screen name. What a lot of teens know, and their parents don't, is that under the Mature Teen setting, they can add a "dot" at the end of a Web site address -- such as www.sex.com. -- to reach reach any web page they like. It shouldn't work that way, but it does, so parents, beware. Another interesting tidbit is that the Kids Only setting seems to let kids access political material from the conservative camp while blocking similar access to more left-wing sites: for example, kids can access material from the Republican National Committee, the Constitution Party, the Libertarian Party, as well as sites operated by gun makers such as Colt and Browning, and the National Rifle Association. They are unable to access material from the Democratic National Committee, the Green Party, and the Reform Party, nor could they get to information from gun-regulation groups such as the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Safer Guns Now, and the Million Mom March.

Parents, AOL has a lot of material of interest for you. Keyword: Bouncing Back will take you to an area devoted to women surviving crises, in job, health, or family. Keyword: How Do I is for the parents of twins, triplets, and beyond, with advice and suggestions on handling the suddenly-larger family. And if you can show your kids to Keyword: The Case Kids, they may become intrigued with reading, solving, and submitting mystery stories.

AOL has launched a new educational resource, AOL@School, available on the Net at www.school.aol.com and at Keyword: AOL@School. Users don't have to be AOL clients, but they do have to register to receive the necessary free software. Schools, not individual learners, are the targets for this program, which is an aggregate of materials selected by teachers and approved by an advisory board. If this interests you, you should get with your child's school to see if they're on board.

If you're using AOL in a secure location and don't want to have to worry about entering your password every time you sign on, have AOL remember it for you. Under My AOL, click Preferences, and then click the Passwords icon. Enter the password you sign in with and click the Valid for Sign On box. Click OK and AOL will let you sign on unencumbered by password requests.

What is My Space (or, more aptly, My FTP Space)? It's where AOL provides its members with 2MB of server space per screen name (14MB in all). Most AOL users, myself included, use it as storage space for their Web sites. But, you can also use it as storage for graphics, programs, files, or anything you want to store online for others to download and use. Go to Keyword: My Space for more info. (Unfortunately, AOL does not support domain names such as www.mywebsite.com; AOL steers members who want hosted Web sites with domain names to their business partner, Verio.)

AOL also provides for FTP use by WS_FTP users. They've recently changed their protocols; you can find out more info by visiting www.FTPplanet.com/nl.plx?AOL.

AOL provides members with the opportunity to set up Interest Profiles (not the same as Member Profiles) for themselves. (Go to Keyword: Interest Profile.) You can indicate communities of AOL members that appeal to you, and topics of interest from computing to parasailing. AOL sends you e-mail periodically with links to various areas within AOL that appeal to your profile choices. Although you're the only person who can access your profile, other like-minded AOLers can see your name listed in subject areas, so you may be contacted by people who share your interest -- or just want to know what you're wearing. Another downside is that profiled members tend to get inundated with admail and general spam.

A similar feature is News Profiles. AOL will email you news stories on topics you select once you fill out a News Profile through My AOL. It's recommended that if this is something that interests you, start small, or you'll find yourself deluged with news mailings. The default limit of ten stories per day should work for new users, but if you find that ten isn't enough (or too much), open My AOL and News Profiles. Select "Modify Your News Profile" and select the News Profile you want to accept more stories. Click Edit. In the upper right corner of the News Profile window, change the daily limit -- you can go lower than 10 or higher, to a max of 50. Want to decide where these stories come from? In the same "Modify Your News Profile" area, select the profile to change, choose Edit, and look at the available sources. Click Add to move any of these to your Selected Sources, or click Remove to cut back on your sources. The more sources you add, the more stories get sent to you, so manage your news mailings. Like so much of AOL, news topics are dependent on keywords. You will be asked to type the most important words for a topic. If you want to use a phrase, surround it with single quotes: for example, if you're as big a Tarheel fan as I am, you might want stories on 'North Carolina Tarheels' or something similar, and separate each word or phrase by commas.

Use AOL's Download Manager to handle your file downloads. Pick the file you want to download, choose the Download Later option, and go through Download Manager, available through My Files, to set the parameters.

Download Manager also shows what files you've downloaded. Click My Files, Download Manager, and Show Files Downloaded to see what you've got waiting for you. (If you have any with the .ZIP extension, you can decompress it by simply highlighting the zipped file and choosing Decompress.)

America Online subscribers whose usage is billed hourly -- those who don't have unlimited use for a single monthly fee -- should be careful about downloading. Hourly subscribers shouldn't put off downloading any files from the Unlimited Use areas. Downloading right away is free. Marking files for later downloading by the Download Manager generates additional costs. No matter where hourly subscribers find a file -- in the Unlimited Use area or not -- they pay if the Download Manager has to do the work. If you burn up a bunch of hourly-billed time for a download that doesn't work, go to Keyword: Credit and ask for a refund.

Don't like AOL's selection of sounds? AOL automatically configures your Sound applet with its choices of sounds when it is installed. To change things (i.e. to replace the "You've got mail!" .WAV with, say, a .WAV of Ma Kettle ringing the dinner bell and yelling "Come and git it!," go through Control Panel, double-click the Sounds applet, scroll down the Events listings until you get to America Online, and look over the selections for each sound. If you want to change one, click it to highlight it and use the Browse button to find the sound file on your PC you'd rather use. Want to have Mick Jagger or Rosie O'Donnell spice up your sound files? Go to Keyword: Celebrity Voices and listen to replacements for the original sound files. There's also a file of "AOL Replacement Sounds" available at hotfiles.zdnet.com/cgi-bin/texis/swlib/hotfiles/info.html?fcode=000XDG&b=help that were originally produced as higher-quality replacements of the basic AOL sounds. Four of the .WAVs even feature Elwood Edwards, the original "voice of AOL."

Keyword: Perks takes you to AOL's Members Perks page, which is loaded with shopping offers, discounts, freebies, etc. Some are worth looking into and some are a waste of time and bandwidth.

Keyword: Fun Stuff is a new AOL feature that includes lots of goodies from AOL: Computing. Downloads, chat, games, and more are available through this screen.

Keyword: Print Central provides you with similar goodies as Fun Stuff, but everything is printable. Lots of hobby and holiday ideas, along with crossword puzzles and other goodies.

Keyword: Thesaurus does just what you'd think it does, but offers foreign-language info as well.

Speaking of games, remember that only the master screen name can register to play the premium (i.e. pay-to-play) games AOL offers. If you want to enable your other screen names to play premium games, sign on to the system under the master screen name and then use keyword: Parental Controls. After the window appears, click the Premium Services button. After the Premium Services Controls window appears, clear the Block Premium Services checkbox for each screen name that gets to play premium games. To clear the checkbox, just click it. To prevent a screen name from playing the premium games, make sure that you check the Block Premium Services checkbox next to the screen name.

Tired of AOL sending all downloads to the Download subfolder in your America Online folder? Go into My Files on the toolbar, click on Download Manager, and use the Select Destination button to browse to where you want AOL downloads to be stored.

Personal Filing Cabinet tips: If you keep a lot of files in your Personal Filing Cabinet, you won't be able to access them once you terminate your AOL service. If you intend to use them offline, better copy them to your hard drive before telling AOL to kiss off. And, on the topic of PFCs, you can make and organize subfolders within the main PFC directory, simply by clicking the Add Folder button and then clicking them to Rename or Delete. Drag folders where you want to rearrange the hierarchy. And, the PFC gets large and out-of-control periodically, and needs compacting. Go through My Files, Personal Filing Cabinet, and choose Compact PFC to reclaim some space and keep things well organized. Want to resize the PFC? Make it smaller to reclaim hard disk space, or make it larger to store more files, by going through My AOL, Preferences, clicking the Personal Filing Cabinet button, and in the dialog box, setting an MB size for your PFC. You can also change the settings that let you know when you're running out of room, but generally the defaults on those are OK. Can't find something stored in your PFC? Run Find by going into My Files, Personal Filing Cabinet, clicking on Find, and entering the desired search string into the Search box.

Don't want people IM'ing you? Turn off the IM feature by going into People on the toolbar, clicking on Instant Message, typing this into the To: dialog box: $im_off and then typing any single character into the Message field. Click Send and you've turned off your IMing. People who try to IM you will get a message that you aren't receiving messages. Turn it back on by going through the same process, except now you will type $im_on in the To: box.

AOL handles newsgroups (Usenet) fairly straightforwardly. Get started by going to Keyword: Usenet. If the terminology used by Usenet mavens throws you, go to Keyword: Newsgroups and double-click "Newsgroup Glossary." Non-AOL users can access this glossary by going to www.aol.com/netfind/scoop/newsgroup_glossary.html.

AOL has a blue million proprietary "Keywords" that work only within its own content. Who can remember them all? And why try? Just type "keyword" (without the quotes) in the location line and hit Enter. You'll go to a screen that will let you sort through the keywords in a variety of ways, whichever suits you best. Feel like a surprise? Go to Keyword: Random and click the roulette wheel to be taken to a place of AOL's choosing.

Use the Font Preferences setting to choose the default typeface (Arial, Century Gothic, or Times New Roman, for example), size, style (bold, italic, or underlined), and color for your e-mail, instant messages, chat room text, and message boards.

You can even use AOL to access Telnet, the venerable Internet warhorse that new Webheads tend to forget ever existed. Both Win 95 and 98/ME allow Telnet access, and here's how to get to the old fellow over AOL: Go to Keyword: Software and search for Telnet. Decide which Telnet access program you want, download it, and install it. Now you can access Telnet. To use Telnet access, get the host name of the site you want to visit (probably from a line that says "You can access us via Telnet at XXXXXX"). Then sign on to AOL, click on the Windows Start button, and choose Run. Type TELNET in the Run box and click OK. In the Telnet window that appears, choose Connect + Remote System. In the Connect dialog box, type the Host Name of the PC you want to reach. Then click on Connect. In the Telnet window, you should see the sign-on details of the Host computer. Then you type answers to the Telnet questions (they should be more or less self-explanatory). When you're done, choose Connect + Exit to close the Telnet program.

If you like accessing Telnet through AOL, you'll love getting back with Gopher. Gopher is the horse-and-buggy (i.e. pre-Web) way to find information on the Internet. Plenty of info is out there waiting for Gopher to dig up that can't be found on the Web. Just type "Gopher" (without the quotes) into AOL's location line and hit Enter. The results won't be as graphically decorative, but the info's the thing, right?

AOL Mexico has opened its virtual doors. Reportedly the site is constructed by Mexicans (and not AOL gringos ignorant of Mexican culture and mores), and offers much the same content and utilities as its American sibling.

Real couch potatoes might like AOLTV, their version of WebTV. The TV box comes with its own 56K modem, 4GB hard drive, printer port, and a USB port. It will support Java scripts, Flash, QuickTime, and Real Media, but not Microsoft Windows Media or MP3. Nor will it provide all of the AOL features you can get through a computer. But now you can watch "Days of Our Lives" and chat about it onscreen all at once. It won't be cheap: the box will run you $250, plus a monthly fee of $14 for AOL members -- on top of the regular $22 monthly charge -- or $25 for non-AOL members. The only other things you'll need are a phone line and a television. It is easy to get, though: you can buy AOLTV through AOL directly or at Circuit City stores.